


About Mara

by Kedreeva



Series: The Unspoken [3]
Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Duke POV, M/M, Nathan POV, Nuke (Haven)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:24:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan and Duke talk about what happened with Duke and Mara.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nathan's POV

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jadzibelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadzibelle/gifts), [serendipityxxi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/gifts).



> The first chapter will be in Nathan's POV. The second chapter is the same conversation, but from Duke's POV. I was using this as a challenge to myself to compare their thought processes.

            “You sure you’re okay?” Nathan asked quietly, glancing sidelong at Duke in his passenger seat.

            The car was idling in the parking lot as they waited just outside HPD for the others to join them. Dwight was still answering questions about the Troubles, now that they were out in the open. Nathan knew he should probably be in there helping, but he’d needed to talk to Duke. Alone. Needed the reassurance that he really was  _better_  than the deathly pale vision Nathan had left on the beach with Audrey and Charlotte.

            “No,” Duke said, pressing down and back into the seat like he wished it would swallow him up and save him from this conversation. “I’m not  _okay_. Nothing is  _okay_ about any of this.”

            Nathan wasn’t sure what to say to that, because Duke was right. There were Troubles cropping up all over town, new and  _extremely dangerous_ Troubles, so many that they had no way to deal with all of them appropriately. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. He knew exactly how good that sounded.

            “Like we  _figured out_  how to deal with the Barn?” Duke asked, pointedly not looking at Nathan. “Like we  _figured out_  how to send William into the Void? Like we  _figured out_  how to handle Mara?” His voice cracked over the last two words, and Nathan’s mind prickled with recognition.

            Something was wrong. Something Duke wasn’t telling him.

_Mara really did like you, Duke._

            Charlotte’s words settled cold and worrisome inside of him.

_She said you two were going on a trip._

            Nathan did his best to keep his voice neutral, not wanting to push Duke into clamming up. “There something you want to talk about?”

            The silence stretched so long that Nathan thought Duke was going to ignore the question entirely. He waited, letting his patience spool out, watching Duke sit beside him strung tight enough to snap. Finally, the tension in Duke’s posture eased, and he sagged into the seat like he had lost a battle.

            “You shouldn’t have left me alone with Mara,” Duke told him, voice barely climbing over the sound of the Bronco’s engine.

            “You handled her,” Nathan replied evenly, because he  _had_.

            Duke had kept Mara under control, kept her from hurting anyone, gotten some kind of help out of her so that he didn’t explode. Charlotte had said that Mara had turned Duke off, stopped his Trouble from going haywire; it was Charlotte’s mistake in killing Mara that had undone that. Duke had taken care of himself, just like Nathan had figured he would, just like he _always did_.

            But Duke gave a bitter laugh at Nathan’s words, and Nathan balked inside to hear it. There was no humor in such a sound. “Yeah, I  _handled her_  all right,” Duke bit out, looking disgusted.

            Nathan’s eyes went wide at the implication. “You-?”

            “Yeah,” Duke said, before Nathan could say it aloud, and Nathan knew his breathing faltered. “Yeah, she- I wasn’t… in the best place,” he added. The words  _you should have been there_  laced his tone, needling Nathan with guilt.

            He didn’t try to respond, didn’t offer any words that they both knew were meaningless. Nathan’s grip tightened on the steering wheel as it began to dawn on him exactly what they had left Duke to try to handle alone when he had brushed off Duke’s plea for help.

            “ _Why_?” was what slipped out of him when his throat finally began to work again.

            Duke flinched, and Nathan would have given anything to take back the word, to gather up his question and replace it with apologies, with reassurances that he wouldn’t do that again, would never leave Duke so alone again. Duke beat him to it.

            “I needed help,” Duke explained, voice strained. “You were in my body, you felt it; I was falling apart. I thought that, you know… that I wasn’t going to  _make it_  if something didn’t give. So I- I  _caved_. I asked for help and she… Mara was the only one who answered. She was the only one who helped me.”

            Nathan opened his mouth to say something, but even if he’d had the words, he didn’t have the air. They had been dealing with other things, when Duke had called. There had been  _problems_ in town, Audrey was terribly sick, and Duke had always…

            Nathan’s vision went a little fuzzy with the rush of guilt and realization. Duke really had needed them when he called, and Nathan had ignored him. Left him to face Mara alone, left him to her influence,  _knowing_ how manipulative she was, knowing what she was capable of doing to someone vulnerable. He’d seen first hand what she could do with words alone.

            “Duke…” Nathan said, not sure where to go from there.

            “Don’t,” Duke rasped, and when Nathan looked over he found Duke looking back, his expression drawn taut. Duke dropped his gaze first, flicked it up to the windshield. “I can’t- Just, don’t.” He waved a hand toward the police department, where several other officers were trickling out, heading for their cruisers. “We need to deal with Lisa right now.”

            “It can-” Nathan started.

            “Wait?” Duke finished, not bothering to hide the bitterness of the word. “Actually, Nathan, it can’t. You know when other problems could have waited? Yesterday. Or the day before that, or the day before that. When stopping to help me might have given us a chance to  _prevent all of this_. Now it’s too late, and I don’t- I don’t need your help. Lisa does.”

            Nathan watched the other cops pull out of their parking spaces, focused on Dwight when he exited the station and waved to them. It was easier than facing the devastating anger and hurt at war in Duke’s expression.

            “Fine,” he said quietly. “We’re going to talk about this later.”

            “There’s nothing to talk about,” Duke told him, words hot as anger won.

            “She hurt you,” Nathan said blandly. He was angry about it, but he didn’t want Duke to mistake it as anger with  _him_.

            “She  _used_ me,” Duke corrected. “ _You_ hurt me.”

            Nathan flinched, couldn’t bring himself to look back at Duke. He felt the distance gaping between them, the wary look Duke had given him in the station, the stiff way Duke had leaned away from his hug rather than moving into it, and began to understand. He had damaged something between them, something they didn’t have the words or the time to fix.

            He put the Bronco into gear and both hands on the wheel. “I’m sorry,” he said, the words dry and useless in his mouth.

            “Me too,” Duke said, worn and soft, sounding every bit as tired of his situation as he had ever been. “Can we just- can we just  _go_? I’ve caused enough problems for one day, I’d like to fix one for a change.”

            “Yeah,” Nathan said, letting the Bronco roll out of its parking spot to follow after the last of the cruisers. Half of them split one way, and Nathan turned to follow the others in the opposite direction.

            They would make it through this problem, solve this case, and then they would have time. Then they could find Audrey and they could all sit down together, and talk to Duke. Listen to what had happened. Help him.

            Soon, Nathan promised himself. They just needed a little more time.


	2. Duke's POV

            “You sure you’re okay?” Nathan asked, breaking the silence that had settled as they waited. Duke tried to keep from rolling his eyes. Of course he wasn’t  _okay_.

The car was idling in the parking lot as they waited just outside HPD for the others to join them. Dwight was still answering questions, but they had managed to escape to the car without being stopped. Duke had hoped that the questions would stay trapped inside the station, but clearly some of them had hitched a ride with Nathan.

            “No,” Duke said, sinking down into the seat as he instantly regretted the word. He didn’t want to talk about this, couldn’t have explained why he didn’t just say yes and let the topic drop. Nathan wouldn’t have believed him, but he wouldn’t have asked again. “I’m not  _okay_. Nothing is  _okay_ about any of this.”

            If they were going to argue, might as well go for it, he thought.

            However, Nathan didn’t rise to the bait. He just stared out the front window like the answers were hidden in the brick of the station’s face somewhere. Duke knew they weren’t. There weren’t answers anywhere; that’s why they were in so much trouble right now. That’s why he didn’t want to have this conversation- there was nowhere for it to go.

            “We’ll figure it out,” Nathan said, and Duke wondered if it sounded as lame to Nathan as it did to him. He tamped down a sigh and turned his gaze out the windshield as well.

            “Like we  _figured out_ how to deal with the Barn?” he asked, trying not to sound too bitter about it. The number of things they had figured out successfully could be counted on one hand. The rest was a long line of completely fucking up to the detriment of one or more of their group. All he wanted was for one thing to go right. Just one. “Like we  _figured out_ how to send William into the Void? Like we  _figured out_  how to handle Mara?”

            He heard his voice crack when he said the last, hadn’t realized just how raw that particular wound still was. When he’d been falling apart, in need of help, Mara had been the one to extend a hand and even though he had known what a bad idea that was, even though he had  _known_ the venom her pretty words held would hurt him, he’d let her. He’d helped her. He’d let her close, let her use him.

_I really wish you were somebody else right now._

            Duke’s heart twisted up into his throat.

_You’ll just have to make do._

            The idea that maybe he hadn’t been the only one guilty of using someone settled like lead under his skin, left him feeling wrung out and ill.

            “There something you want to talk about?”

            The question was soft, hesitant, bare. Duke hated it. There had been a thousand things he wanted to talk about, a thousand things he could have used input on in the last few days, a thousand words Nathan could have said at any time to help Duke.

            Now there were none, the damage already irrevocably done, and all Duke could think was that if he said something, said  _anything_ , that Nathan would leave him alone again. If Duke told him what had happened, what he had  _let_ happen, he knew that Nathan wouldn’t understand.  _Couldn’t_ understand, because he  _hadn’t_ understood anything Duke was going through.

            At least, Duke  _hoped_ that was the case.

            He  _hoped_ that Nathan hadn’t understood what was happening with Duke, because if he  _had_ , if he had really  _grasped_ the severity of the situation and  _ignored_ it… Duke wasn’t sure they could be fixed. Wasn’t sure there was enough time in the world, enough words to be said, that could fix the kind of hurt that would accompany that kind of disregard.

            But he couldn’t say any of that. Couldn’t give voice to any of that fear or it would consume him. Instead, he sagged into the seat and let out a soft breath. “You shouldn’t have left me alone with Mara,” he mumbled, almost hoping Nathan wouldn’t hear.

            “You handled her,” Nathan said, and it was so neutral, the words on the cusp of confusion, that Duke could convince himself Nathan really hadn’t understood.

            A bitter laugh bubbled out of him, unbidden. “Yeah,” he said, his disgust for the situation coloring his words. “I  _handled her_  all right.” He knew he wasn’t going to win points for subtlety on that one.

            It was a certain sort of satisfying to see Nathan’s eyes go wide at his implication. “You-?”

            “Yeah,” Duke confirmed, and there was no going back now, might as well lay it all on the table and let Nathan decide as he would. “Yeah, she- I wasn’t in the best place.” That was the understatement of the century, but Duke let it stand.

            The next few seconds stretched for what seemed like an eternity as Duke waited for Nathan’s reaction. He expected anger, because Nathan was always angry when Duke stepped out of line. Disgust, maybe, for what Mara had been to Nathan. Certainly betrayal, for any number of reasons; Duke wasn’t sure he didn’t feel betrayed by his own actions, so he wouldn’t begrudge Nathan that one.

            Instead, the word “ _Why_?” tumbled out of Nathan, and it wasn’t angry, wasn’t an accusation. It sounded like bewilderment, and Duke flinched.

            “I needed help,” he explained, not sure how to express to Nathan everything that lead to why. He wasn’t sure he even  _knew_ why. “You were in my body, you felt it; I was falling apart. I thought that, you know… that I wasn’t going to  _make it_  if something didn’t give. So I- I  _caved_.” Those words tasted ashy and bitter on his tongue. “I asked for help and she… Mara was the only one who answered. She was the only one who helped me.”

            And there it was, all the pain that had been driving Duke for days now, the vulnerable soft-spot that Mara had found within him. The place wherein she had hooked her claws, dug in, held on.

_You feel alone, isolated, abandoned._

            Her words had echoed every truth he’d felt, touched every raw wound that had been left behind by Nathan and Audrey when he’d needed them to be there and they weren’t.

_I won’t abandon you, Duke._

            “Duke…” Nathan began, and Duke could  _hear_ the guilt.

            “Don’t,” he rasped, glancing over at Nathan and knowing that some of his distress must have been showing on his face. He couldn’t hear an apology today; it was likely to break him. “I can’t- Just, don’t.” There were people coming out of the station now, and they had someone else to save, just like they always did. “We need to deal with Lisa right now.”

            “It can-” Nathan began.

            “Wait?” Duke finished, sharply, letting his bitterness taint the word. He didn’t want to hear that Nathan was willing to put someone on hold for him _now_ , when he didn’t need it. “Actually, Nathan, it can’t. You know when other problems could have waited? Yesterday. Or the day before that, or the day before that. When stopping to help me might have given us a chance to  _prevent all of this_. Now it’s too late, and I don’t- I don’t need your help. Lisa does.”

            It was a lot, more than he expected to say, more anger than he’d wanted to vent. He could see Nathan trying to process it, or maybe just waiting out the storm, maybe just trying to decide if it was worth getting into the argument when they both knew Duke was right. Lisa needed help and Duke wasn’t in danger anymore.

            “Fine,” Nathan said quietly, in the exact way that meant it wasn’t fine at all. “We’re going to talk about this later.”

            “There’s nothing to talk about,” Duke told him hotly, trying not to be angry. It wasn’t working well. He  _was_ angry. He shouldn’t have to have been, and that only made him angrier.

            “She hurt you,” Nathan said without inflection. It was some kind of question, some kind of offering, the first tentative indication that Nathan thought he had an inkling of understanding.

            Unfortunately he didn’t.

            “She  _used_ me,” Duke corrected. Mara hadn’t hurt him- she couldn’t; he would have had to care for her, the way he cared for Nathan and Audrey. “ _You_ hurt me.”

            It was Nathan’s turn to flinch, and Duke could tell he was avoiding meeting Duke’s eyes on purpose. Duke wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel about that, but at least it felt like maybe Nathan finally  _got it_. He watched Nathan put the Bronco into gear, hands resting lightly on the steering wheel.

            “I’m sorry,” Nathan said, voice like sandpaper.

            Whatever fight Duke had had left in him fled at the words. They were more genuine than he expected and as tired as he felt. He didn’t want to fight with Nathan. He’d already had too much of that for his tastes. “Me too,” he said, letting his exhaustion drag the words down. “Can we just- can we just  _go_? I’ve caused enough problems for one day, I’d like to fix one for a change.”

            A part of him hoped that Nathan would tell him it wasn’t his fault, that the new Troubles weren’t on him any more than the original Troubles had been on Audrey, but Nathan just let the Bronco roll out of its parking space with a quietly murmured agreement. Duke wasn’t sure if that was fair or not, was inclined to agree with Nathan’s silence, to shoulder the blame for what was going on now.

            At least Nathan was talking to him again, hadn’t made him stay behind.

            At least they were  _together_ again.

            Duke just hoped it would stay that way.

            He didn’t want to be alone anymore.


End file.
